1. Field
Exemplary embodiments relate to a microfluidic device, and more particularly, to a microfluidic device having an improved structure which is capable of reducing an inspection time and preventing occurrence of detection errors.
2. Description of the Related Art
A driving pressure is required to transfer a fluid in a microfluidic structure. Generally, a centrifugal force and a capillary pressure are often used as the driving pressure, and a pressure caused by a separate pump is often used as the driving pressure. In recent years, disk-shaped microfluidic devices, which have a microfluidic structure provided at a disk-shaped body thereof and thus use a centrifugal force to transfer a fluid and to perform a series of processes, have been proposed. Such a microfluidic device is referred to as Lab CD, a lab-on a disk, or a digital bio-disk (DBD).
Generally, a disk-shaped microfluidic device includes a chamber configured to store a fluid, a channel through which the fluid flows, and a valve configured to adjust a flow of the fluid, and may be constructed by using various combinations of these parts.
A microfluidic device may be used as a sample test device configured to test a sample such as blood, saliva, urine, or the like. A reagent which can react with a certain material in the sample is provided inside the microfluidic device. In this case, the sample may be tested by injecting the sample into the microfluidic device and detecting reaction results of the reagent with the sample.
In conventional microfluidic devices, a sample is weighed in a separate chamber, and a reaction of the sample occurs in a reaction chamber. Therefore, the conventional microfluidic devices have problems in that a separate chamber in which the sample weighing is carried out in a given space is required, and a relatively long inspection time is also characteristic.
In addition, impurities which are generated during a sample inspection may be introduced into the detection chamber, and/or external light may enter the detection chamber, resulting in occurrence of detection errors.